Video Game News Digest #2

Another month has passed and there were plenty of gaming news especially after TGS. Here are some of the news from September:

Dragon Quest X Announced

During a press conference, Square Enix confirmed that they will be releasing Dragon Quest X: Waking of the Five Tribes, which will be the series' first online RPG. Players to go online to team up with each other to form four-members party or go solo with NPCs where they can explore the world of Astordia, which will be much bigger than Dragon Quest VIII's world. You can meet with other players at a tavern, which is similar to the one in Dragon Quest IX. You can also send items or letter to your online friends via the Post Office.

Astordia has five continents, which also contain the classes you can choose from:

Ogreed - A mesa-like land where Ogres, who are brave and strong, live

Wena Island - An island in which Wena (water creatures who loves to sing) reside

Eltona - Nature-loving elves live here

Dwachakka - Dwarves, who value craftsmanship and money, reside in this mountainous region

Pukuland - Pukuripos, who like to dream and laugh, live here

The five classes

The story will begin with the players living in a small village with their brother or sister, who will be created by the players as well. The players are human at first, but something happened that they transformed into one of the five classes listed above. Each race will have their own quests to fulfill. Lastly, the game will have a "final" boss, but the story will be massive so players can continue playing online.

Gameplay will be the traditional combat system with command menus and the quest system will be similar to the previous game. You can also choose a job for your character; the jobs are: Warrior, Thief, Mage, Martial Artist, Monk, and Minstrel. Alchemy will also be in the game but a new crafting system, Sewing, will allow players to create their own fashion styles for their characters. Even though you can save at a church like a typical Dragon Quest game, auto-save will also be available.

The game will be available for the Wii and Wii U; Square Enix stated that you can transfer data from the former to the latter. A 3DS version is being developed so players can transfer their character data to the handheld to play Tag Mode with each other. According to the Kyoto Shimbun, Square Enix is also going to develop the game for the Famicon (similar to the original NES system).

The Wii version will be out in 2012 but the release date for the Wii U hasn't been determined yet.

The North American release of the Professor Layton's first 3DS game will include the 16-bit RPG game, Professor Layton’s London Life. The RPG, which will clock in 100 hours of gameplay, will have the players perform quests for residents. Unfortunately, the European version will NOT have this feature included.

Even though the Ao no Exorcist game is an action game, its battle system will be similar to a typical RPG. Rin or Yukio can run into enemies and engage them in battles by choosing commands. Players need to determine the enemies' weaknesses to win the fight and if you built enough trust with your teammates, you can perform a powerful team attack.

The battle system for Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan – Great War of a Hundred Gathering Demons has been revealed. A commander and two subordinates will battle against a character and his partners in a 3-on-3 match. During the battle, an influence gauge, which is on the bottom of the screen, will fluctuate depending on whether you win or lose.

Rikou Nura, Yuki Onna and Kubinashi are some of the playable characters revealed so far. Konami also mentioned that they have created original super strong techniques for each character just for the game.

More characters have been introduced for the anime crossover game. These sub characters will help the main characters in their fight:

Ryuho (S-cry-ed)

Natsuki Kuga (My-Hime)

Haji (Blood +)

Gourry Gabriev (Slayers Revolution)

Nancy Makuhari (R.O.D. Read or Die)

Corporal of the Keroro (Sgt. Frog)

Majic Lin (Sorcerous Stabber Orphen)

Cleao Everlasting (Sorcerous Stabber Orphen)

Two original characters were also introduced. Eiji Watari and Shinobu Fudou (the main characters) works for Sawada International Research (S.I.R.), a world-renowned organization which is known for its investigative works. These characters became involved with the scenario because they were close to the breach in space/time and were ordered to investigate the phenomenon.

The official website is up and it has revealed more information about the tournament. The "P-1 Grand Prix" is a program that only appears on a TV, which is turned off, during a rainy day. Participants will fight it out in a battle royale; however, the losers will be found dead in the morning. Yu and his friends decide to join in the tournament in order to investigate this new mystery and Teddie's connection to it.

Information on characters' fighting styles has been posted as well.

Yu Narukami: He is a standard fighter who fights with force and sharpness. He uses a katana sword and he summons the person, Izanagi. This is a good choice for beginners and experts since he is easy to use.

Yosuke Hanamura: He uses his speed and flashy skills to defeat his opponents. His choice of weapson is kunai and his persona is Jiraiya.

Chie Satonaka: Like Yosuke, she is a speedster but she rushes into the battle to KO her opponents with her kung-fu skills. Tomoe is her persona.

Aegis: She uses heavy artillery to strike down her opponents. Aegis also has Orgia Mode, which increases her attack capablities temporarily. Her persona is Athena.

The newest trailer has revealed that Yukiko Amagi and Kanji Tatsumi will be playable as well, but it is hinted that Naoto Shirogane and Teddie will be participating in the tournament.

At a stage event during TGS, the game producers revealed that more characters will be announced later and some of the choices were unexpected. They also hinted at original characters.

Namco Bandai will be making another anime game. This time, the anime will be Crayon Shin-chan. Crayon Shin-chan Uchū DE Achō!? Yūjō no Obakarate is about Shinnosuke Nohara's attempt to take back his hometown, Kasukabe, which has been ripped out of the face of the Earth and sent to out of space by a mysterious entity. Shin-chan will team up with his sister, Himawari, and his pet Shiro to overcome obstacles and get to hard-to-reach places.

In an interview, George Kamitani, director of Dragon's Crown, said that any players, no matter what their levels are, can have a chance encounter against a high level boss. The players will have two choices: 1) if they're at a high enough level, they can fight the boss or 2) if they are at a low level, the players can escape so that there will be a chance of survival.

He gave an example of a dragon. As the players were escaping, the dragon was chasing after them but if the players crossed a bridge on time, they can destroy the bridge and caused the dragon to drop below.

After leaving Capcom, Keiji Inafune has been busy. First, he appeared as a summon and a sword for Hyperdimension Neptunia Mk. 2, and he released a social game in Japan. Now he's going to help develop an otome game called Bakudan Handan. The game is set in a theme park, Shoudou Blossom Land, which has video game attractions and developed by Inafune who is in the game as well. At the opening ceremony, Inafune and the park operators were suddenly kidnapped by a group of men wearing black tights.

The park's mascot, who detonated a bomb, then revealed that she was the main culprit and declared that she will select "seven heroes" to play a series of games. For the next seven days, she will activate a bomb each day unless a hero was able to clear a game on that day. As she was about to make her choices, Inafune's niece (in the game only), Saki Inafune, volunteered to be one. She plans to use her cell phone to get advice from her uncle in order to clear the games.

Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata announced that Production I.G., Studio 4°C, and SHAFT will be producing animated shorts based on Kid Icarus series. These 3 minutes original 3D shorts will be available for free worldwide on the 3DS e-shop.

During Tokyo Game Show, Game Radar noticed an interesting pamphlet from the Capcom booth - it was an English-language press release for the crossover game, Professor Layton vs Ace Attorney. Is this a hint that Capcom will bring the game overseas?

Sony has confirmed that Vita and PSP users can play together through ad-hoc play. Vita can also play downloadable PSP games. The company also has promised to try to make firmware updates for Vita to be less time-consuming. 3G downloads will be limited to 25 megabytes at first but the amount may change in the future.

In an interview, Bravely Default producer Tomoya Asano provided information about Square Enix's newest 3DS game. It will be a typical RPG with random encounters and turn-based battles. The game's job and battle systems are based off of Final Fantasy V. The unnamed girl, who is pictured above, is one of the four main characters in the story.

He also mentioned that new people from outside of SE are working on the scenario and sound.

Since it has been revealed that Neku Sakuraba will be in the new Kingdom Hearts game, people were curious about whether or not Square Enix is going to revive their hit DS game, The World Ends with You. Tetsuya Nomura might have given us a clue in an interview with Famitsu. He stated that Neku's appearance in the game is a hint that "something" is to come and that "something" is being worked on.

Vanillaware's PSP game, Grand Knights History, will be coming to North America and Europe this winter. XSeed will be publishing for NA while Rising Star Game will bring the game to Europe.

The turn-based RPG game takes place in Listia, which is filled with chaos due to war among three kingdoms. The three kingdoms are: Logres (the ancient kingdom), Union (the kingdom of knights), and Avalon (the kingdom of magic). You choose one of the kingdoms to join and customize your characters (e.g. class & subclass, race, color, etc.). The classes are: Knight (soldier type, paladin type, and maiden type), Archer (sniper type, hunter type, and Robin Hood type) and Magician (magician type, witch type, and cleric type).

The game will also have online battle mode in which players can fight against each other. The third link will have more details about this mode.

Mario's newest 3DS game will have SpotPass support, which allows you to trade items with other players, and Assist Blocks, which are similar to the ones in New Super Mario Bros. Wii. If you're stuck in a level, just hit one of the winged P blocks to receive a special item to help you out.

Three of the upcoming 3DS games will be rhythm games. First is a spin-off of the Final Fantasy series called Theatrhythm Final Fantasy. It looks like a typical RPG in which players explore dungeons and fight enemies except that the gameplay is different. Instead you have to tap and hold notes to fight monsters. You will have control of four characters and if you miss a note, you will lose a life. The game will feature popular music (around 50 songs) and characters from the series. It will have three modes: Music Game (Story Mode, Challenge Mode, and ??? Mode), StreetPass Mode, and a Museum (song collection). The game will be available in Japan this winter, but no word on whether or not it will be published outside of Japan.

The next game, Rhythm Thief & the Emperor’s Treasure, is from Sega. The music is being handled by famous artists (not named) and the animation is similar to Lupin and Professor Layton. The story is about a boy named Raphael, who is investigating his father's disappearance. In order to find out his father's whereabouts, he becomes the honorable thief, Phantom Thief R, who is popular in Paris for stealing items and returning them back three days later. The story begins when it was announced that the Louvre is going to display the Tiamat Bracelet, which has a symbol that is similar to a coin that Raphael's father left him. Intrigued, he decides to steal it. Instead of using stealth, he will use his sense of rhythm, which he has gotten from his mother, to complete his objectives.

The game will be available in Japan this winter and early next year in NA and Europe.

Finally, the last game will feature the popular Hatsune Miku. Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai has the Vocaloids animated in Nendoroid super-deformed style and will have the ability to hold Augmented Reality concerts.

Microsoft has issued an apology to some Xbox Live users who have been banned accidentally during the company's crackdown on modded consoles. These gamers will be reinstated immediately and will receive three months of free Xbox Live Gold service, and 1,600 Microsoft Points, which will be applied as soon as they logged into Xbox Live. Stephen "Stepto" Toulouse, head of the Policy and Enforcement team, said that the error was due to "a software issue, not an error on the part of the enforcement team's normal actions."

Suda51 (maker of No More Heroes and Flower, Sun, and Rain) and Grasshopper Manufacture will be making a game for Microsoft Kinect. Diabolical Pitch is similar to a rail shooter except players will throw baseballs at people wearing tiger costumes. You use motions to pitch the ball and create fusion attacks. In the two players mode, if your partner runs out of life, he has to kneel down and you have to help him stand up in order to revive him.

No release date has been revealed but the game will be available worldwide on Xbox Live Arcade.

Nichi Ippon, maker of Disgaea games, is going to make a new dark fantasy action RPG game for the PS3. The Witch and the Hundred Cavalrymen is about a beautiful witch named Metallica, who lives in a swamp. She decides to challenge the ugly witch of the forest by summoning the legendary Hiyakkihei, an army of hundred cavalrymen.

Instead of controlling Metallica, you control a member of the cavalry named "Hyakkihei" ("Hundred Cavalryman"), who is an immortal being that wields a large sword in spite of its small frame. You can also decide whether to be good or evil. You can make Metallica, who can only see your character, summon more cavalrymen, who have different abilities, but that would use up her MP. To restore it, you need to eat GIGAcal. You and the other summoned soldiers will face off giant bosses by using special attacks to defeat them.

The world will be open and seamless; in fact there won't be any transition between the world map and towns. There will be a large amount of freedom for the players to explore the world or fulfill subquests. The visual will be 3D and the game perspective is from above. Even though there will be a lot of blood, the game won't be that gory. The game won't also have any game over but if you die, you will lose your items.

The Witch and the Hundred Cavalrymen will be out in Japan next spring.

Famicon has announced that they are going to remake one of their popular series for Vita. The Legend of Heroes: Zero no Kiseki (Trails of Zero) Full Voice Version, which occurs after The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky trilogy, will presumably have more voice acting in the game compared to the PSP version. The game will be a collaboration between Falcom, Pyramid (maker of the Patapon games), and Chara-Ani (dealer in anime character goods). No words on how the last two are involved though.